Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/164

150 fortunate miner. To the extreme North, Santa Eŭlālĭă gave rise to the town of Chĭhūāhuă; Bătŏpīlăs, and El Părrāl, became each the centre of a little circle of cultivation; Jesus Maria is, at the present day, producing a similar effect; Măpĭnī, Cuēncămē, and Ĭndēĕ, (a little more to the Southward,) served to develope the natural fertility of the banks of the river Nāzăs; while in the low hot regions of Sŏnōră and Cĭnăloă, on the Western Coast, almost every place designated in the map as a town, was originally, (and generally is still,) a Real, or district of mines.

Such was the case with Ălămŏs and Cūlĭăcān, and Cŏsălā and El Rŏsārĭŏ; and such will be found to be the case with an infinity of other towns and villages scattered over the territory of the Mexican Republic, which, but for the mines, never would have existed at all. When once formed, these establishments, as Humboldt very justly observes, often survived the mines which gave them birth; and turned to agricultural labours, for the supply of other districts, that industry which was at first devoted solely to their own. Some, however, are so unfavourably situated as necessarily to follow the fate of the mines; in which case their population goes to swell that of the nearest district where there is a demand for labour, but might easily be diverted into more distant channels, were the advantages held out sufficiently great to compensate the difficulties of the removal.